In mid-2003 Hughes released their first true stand-alone 2-Way system, the DW4020. Although
designed
& marketed towards businesses, the DW4020 was purchased by many home users as
well. Earlier DirecWay/DirecPC systems were difficult for the average home user to network, but
the DW4020 offered an excellent solution, as it features a built-in 4-port 10/100 hub. The DW4020
also uses the same .74m dish that came with the earlier DW4000 system, making upgrading from
that
system basically a simple modem swap-out.
Since the DW4020 is self-hosted, it requires no driver software installed on a host system. This makes the DW4020 compatible withany number of operating systems, like Windows, Unix, Linux, & Mac.
The DW4020 is basically three modem components
stacked one atop another. The top two units are pretty much the same as a DW4000 .. they are the transmit & receive
modems. The bottom unit has the four ethernet ports, and contains the HNS firmware.
As this was mainly a 'business'
system, there probably aren't too many of these still in
service... Newer business oriented HughesNet systems would have likely
replaced them.
Hughes would no longer activate a DW4020 system for new service, so no real use in
tracking
down one of these used. (Unless you like high-tech looking bookends. :) ) Still,
it was a great step forward for Hughes
satellite service at the time.
DW4020 Data Sheet :
You can download the complete Hughes
DW4000 Data-Sheet by clicking on the
image
to the left.
File is in Adobe PDF format. (Size 102k)
